Celestial of the Prophet

Sagitar opened his eyes slowly. He looked around, heart racing, panicking for a few seconds to realize that he was safe in his room. Darkness had snuffed the lights out of the piercing moon rays through the windows. Sagitar reached under his pillow to confirm that he had his sharp knife right where he kept it. Oh good. My knife is still here.

Sagitar sat up with both of his palms rested on the bed, with his bed cover still over his legs. No…that was impossible. While Sagitar slept, he felt something happening to him while he was unconscious but it didn't make sense.

Was I levitating? Was I suspended in the air? He kept asking himself like he was going to get an answer. As he kept wandering, his eyes scanned through the room, only to set on the clock that was hung on the wall. The time was 6:21am. Wow! I slept for too long. Searching in his heart, trying to get answers to his questions, he began to have flashbacks of how the night went.

Sagitar could faintly recall that he woke up twice in the course of his sleep. The first time was at 12 o'clock midnight, when he woke up with his heart beating so fast that it was unbelievable. Although it felt painful, it was bearable. Sagitar had felt like a powerful force was overwhelming his body.

The second time he woke up was exactly at the strike of 3:00am. The events that happened that time was stranger than what he had felt earlier. Slowly, his body began to levitate from the bed. Although he was partly awake, like he was in a trance, it felt quite real. Sagitar could see the ceiling getting closer and closer. The higher he went, the more fear pervaded his mind. Within a short while, his body was descended back to the bed and sleep overtook him in place of his return. The specificity of the times that the events happened, made the occurrence quite disturbing for him.

Sagitar needed answers. Briskly, he got off the bed and headed to the laptop at his desk. He turned it on and waited for it to boot. It was strange for the usually comfortable dreamer. He could not get his mind off the oddness in the times of the event's occurrence. He buried his face in his hands as he eagerly awaited the laptop which seemed to be taking its time to start up. There is something supernatural about what I experienced in the night, I know it, he murmured to himself.

Finally, the screen of his laptop beamed the bright light from the desktop into his face. Immediately, he opened the internet browser. Not knowing what to search for, he typed, 'floating in the air at midnight and at the third hour'. Sagitar was not expecting a serious result to come from the search, however, trying would not hurt. To his shock, he found information on the internet related to his experience. Eventually, he chose to open one of the results that seemed to speak of the experience of levitation during sleep as a psychic awakening. Scrolling through the comment section, his eyes caught a comment that read, "Did anyone experience this during the witching hour and have palpitations too?"

At first Sagitar was puzzled. He wondered, I think palpitation has to do with the heart beating rapidly…I sure hope it does. As he kept reading through, he discovered that his assertion was right. However, deep in Sagitar's heart, he kept having a feeling that the person who spoke of his experience had practically the same experience that he had through the night. To ascertain this, Sagitar had to check out the meaning of witching hour, in hopes that everything may make more sense. The result of his search was shocking for him. The witching hour was a period in the night associated with supernatural events, the occult, black magic and Satanism. Some of the information were not alien to Sagitar. At some point or the other, he had come across some of this information but he never took it seriously until right then. After making a brief study on what the witching hour was, Sagitar became uncomfortable. His skin broke out in sweats as he began to rationalize all he had read and learned. It turns out that the experience he had could be rationalized as a night terror, all happening within the range of the time of the witching hour. He found that the definition was a medical explanation for the supernatural experience itself.

Unbelievable! This is some really dark stuff, he mutters to himself.

At the desk, Sagitar was not aware that time had gone so quickly. He was so engrossed in his research that he had spent almost the whole day researching. His desires for answers overtook his plans to get work done so much that the hunger for it filled his belly with emptiness—food did not even cross his mind.

Sagitar stretched his body, lifting his eyes to the wall clock. Whoa! Is that what the time says already? 3pm. So fast… He had lost track of it while doing his research on the witching hour, black magic, Satanism and his experience through the night. He had gathered all sorts of information concerning the topic from different forums and blogs. More so, he even had found videos of people trying to explain all these topics he had researched step by step.

Ignoring what the time said, he returned his gaze to the laptop in front of him. All these accounts though, there is no way they could be making all these things up because it is consistent with my own experience—I must have had this awakening too, Sagitar thought to himself.

The realization of a life, although invisible, beyond the usual material reality surrounding him, got him thinking about the world he lives in. Buried beneath layers of reality are occurrences that cannot be understood by human senses. As much as the empirical world of science has reduced everything to all that can be seen, daily, people experience what they cannot explain. Sagitar recalled a work of fiction that he was working on before the demise of his parents. It was about a revelation on the earth that was heavily tied to the bible. With all this in motion, all the details he had gathered was beginning to inspire him to continue the work. However, fear caught him. He brought out his notes, started jotting down and gathering materials to build his plot regardless of the darkness overwhelming his very core.

Later on that day, as Sagitar was working, his phone began to ring. He picked the phone up from the desk, where it had been sitting, untouched and unnoticed all day. Then he turned the loudspeaker on and answered the phone call.

"Hello," Sagitar answered.

"Sagitar my man. Are you still up for meeting at Lloyd's bar?" Roland called out.

"Sure, yeah of course. Let me just check the time." Sagitar tilted his head to see what the clock on the wall said. Eight minutes past seven? Time flies, he thought.

"I am going to be heading there soon. What time can you meet me?" Roland asked.

All of a sudden, Sagitar felt dizzy. In a quick moment, he recalled that he had not eaten all day and his body was already sending him signals. "I need to grab something to eat, take a shower, get changed into something decent and I will catch the bus straight to town," Sagitar explained.

"Around what time do you think you will be down?" Roland asked.

"Say nine o'clock…I guess. But I could be earlier or later, depending on the traffic," Sagitar replied.

"Alright mate. Cool. I will see you in a bit," Roland responded.

"See you later," Sagitar assured Roland. He then closed the call.

The young man now set to go out went downstairs to the kitchen to make a quick cereal snack. After eating quickly, he headed back upstairs to the bathroom to take a shower. Once his shower was over and he had dried himself, he looked into his wardrobe, picked out a designer red top and black silk trouser. After changing into his clothes, he sprayed some aftershave over his neck.

Grabbing his wallet with his keys in it, he picked up his phone and stepped out of his room. Sagitar took a quick look at himself in the mirror, yeah, this will do, he thought. The lad now set for a social evening proceeded towards the main entrance, turned off the lights, locked the door behind himself and started his usual walk towards the bus stop.

Arriving at the stop, he looked at the time that the bus was set to arrive as well.

Not bad timing…it won't take long. Sagitar muttered toward his wristwatch in sight.

It was almost 8 o'clock in Downend, the environment around the bus stop was practically desolate. It was obvious that generally people would be in their homes, preparing for Monday which was the first day of work for most. Although it had slipped his mind, Sagitar closed in on how unusual it was for him to be going out on a Sunday night considering that the next day was Monday.

When the bus arrived, Sagitar got on it and made his way to his usual spot at the back. He began to daydream about his memories with Roland thinking of all their adventures and mischief as the bus moved into town. As the outing that he was going to have with Roland brightened him up, he remembered how fun going out to bars could be but realized how it was currently not a place he would like to be found. When he first reached eighteen, it was a new and exciting experience but he got bored as he reached his mid-twenties and stopped going to such places altogether. For him, going to a bar to see Roland was like a fish stepping out of water. When he desired to socialize with friends, Sagitar preferred going for meals, the cinema or to save up and go for bigger events, like paint-balling or a vacation catch up.

The bus slowed down to stop at its final destination in the city center. Sagitar gets off. As expected, down town was not that packed. For him, it seemed like a typical Sunday night. He began to walk towards Lloyd's bar which was situated right by where the boats were at the waterfront of Bristol. A place that is now a social club orientated setting where the old docks used to be located. He arrived in the location spot at exactly 8:47pm, just two minutes away from his destination, a walk soon to end. There, he went deeper into the Waterfront to get to Lloyd's Bar. I hope this will be a fun night, he mused as he push opened the entrance door to his destination.